Applying an import

After the preview, ConfigPort asks you to confirm the import. Nothing changes on this site before you click Apply the import.

Confirm the import

1. On the preview page, make your choices for each item and click Continue. Continue shows when at least one item can be imported.

2. The confirmation page lists each item that the import changes: its target on this site, Merge or Replace, and the number of settings that change. It also gives the number of items that already match this site, and the items that are not imported.

   

3. Click Apply the import.

Back to the preview goes back without a change. Cancel deletes the uploaded file.

If the settings of an item change on this site after the preview, for example because someone saves the item, Continue shows the preview again with the current settings. Check it, then click Continue again. ConfigPort doesn't write over settings that the preview didn't show you.

What happens when you apply

ConfigPort works in this order:

1. It checks the file and your choices again.
2. It checks that the settings of each target are still the ones the preview showed. An item whose settings changed is not imported and keeps its settings.
3. It refuses settings that would take more than 65,535 bytes. This is the size of the column where Joomla keeps the settings.
4. An item whose settings already mean the same as the file's is not written. It shows as No change.
5. It saves a snapshot of the current settings of every item it is about to change.
6. Plugins that act when an extension is saved run, as when you click Save on the edit screen. A plugin can refuse the change of an item, and that item keeps its settings. A plugin can also change the settings while they are saved, as some core plugins do. ConfigPort then stores what the plugin left, as Joomla does, and the result says so.
7. It writes the new settings. Before each write, it checks that the database can keep each value as it is. A value that the database would change is not written, for example an emoji in a database table that does not use utf8mb4.
8. Plugins that act after a save run.
9. It cleans the Joomla cache of the changed items, the output cache of a changed module included, so the site uses the new settings at once.

ConfigPort changes only the settings of an item. It never changes the title, the position, the access level, the state, the permissions or any other value of the item.

ConfigPort never writes over a save that another administrator makes while the import runs. If that save comes before ConfigPort writes the item, the item shows as Conflict and keeps the settings of that save. If it comes after, that save is stored after the import, as when two people save the same item one after the other.

The upload is used once. To import the same file again, upload it again.

If writing fails

ConfigPort writes the items of one import together. If writing one item fails, for example because the database cannot keep a value as it is, ConfigPort undoes the items that it already wrote in this import. The result shows those items as Undone.

If the database cannot undo a change, because the table does not support transactions, ConfigPort puts the item back from the snapshot. It does this only while the item still holds what ConfigPort wrote. If an item still cannot be put back, the result says so and gives the snapshot to restore it from.

The result

After the import, the result page opens. It shows the snapshot that ConfigPort saved, and the status of each item:

Download the report saves the result as a JSON file. The report lists each item and the settings that changed. Values that look secret are left out. When this site cannot read the settings form of an item, the report leaves out every value that item had on this site, as the preview hides them.

To undo the import, see Reverting an import.

Apply from an edit screen

An import that you start from the Import button of an edit screen also ends with Apply the import. After the import, the edit screen of the item opens again and loads the imported settings from the database. A message gives the number of the snapshot that ConfigPort saved first.

Too many fields

PHP accepts a limited number of fields per form (max_input_vars). The confirmation page sends your choices in a few fields, whatever the number of items. If some fields do not reach the server anyway, ConfigPort imports nothing and says so. The preview page has one field for each choice you can make. See Importing a file.

The action log

Each import adds an entry to Users → User Actions Log with the number of changed items, their kinds, the number of items that were not imported, and a link to the snapshot. ConfigPort writes the entry when ConfigPort is ticked in Events To Log, in the User Actions Log options.